New government plans to help combat fuel poverty will unfairly penalise the 9,000 households in Cheshire who use oil to heat their home, according to the oil heating industry.

Under proposals to update the Energy Company Obligation (ECO) scheme, which is aimed at supporting fuel poor households with energy saving measures, households which use oil heating will no longer be able to repair or replace an old or faulty boiler with a new oil appliance.

However, anyone using gas heating would be eligible for a boiler repair or replacement.

Oil heated households may still be allowed to fit other heating systems, such as LPG and air source heat pumps, but these solutions currently cost £505 and £633 more respectively each year to run so fuel bills would soar as a result, warns OFTEC, which represents the oil heating industry.

By contrast, a new oil boiler would reduce their costs by £231, they say.

OFTEC fear this would exacerbate the already critical situation 30,916 households in Cheshire face because they cannot afford to adequately heat their homes.

The organisation has voiced major concerns over the new ECO proposals which have been echoed by other organisations and a number of rural MPs.

Malcolm Farrow from OFTEC, said: “The fact that fuel poverty levels are already higher in rural areas such as Cheshire, where a large number of oil using consumers live, makes government proposals to omit oil boilers from the next round of ECO even more nonsensical.

“The situation could be acceptable if affordable alternative heating solutions to oil existed, but the simple fact is that currently they don’t.

“As a result, many already financially vulnerable people may be encouraged to replace their oil heating system with a more expensive alternative that they just can’t afford to run.

“This could put them into even greater fuel poverty and at risk of illness or potentially even death, especially older people during the colder winter months.”

A further concern is that oil households may ignore faulty appliances, employ low cost ‘cowboy’ technicians to fix them, or even try to carry out repairs themselves. This would again potentially put lives at riskn warns OFTEC.

They feel the changes also fail to take account of developments already under way in the oil heating industry to produce a low carbon liquid fuel (biofuel) as a replacement for oil.

In the meantime, the roll out of high efficiency oil boilers would help lift many consumers out of fuel poverty by considerably reducing their energy bills and provide immediate carbon savings.

Mr Farrow added: “We hope the government will recognise the unfairness of the new proposals and reconsider the potential impact on the health and well-being of the very people the scheme is supposed to protect.”